


A Dozen Small Things

by lamella



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Ghost Jon, M/M, Urban Fantasy, god martin, not a God but a god yknow. just the little stuff dont sweat it, sort of? ghost-ish jon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:06:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22061530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamella/pseuds/lamella
Summary: “Hasn’t anybody ever told you staring is rude?”“I- sorry, yeah, but- you can see me?”“Of course I see you, don’t be-” The man cuts himself off and his scowl deepens. “You’re not a ghost, are you?”
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 22
Kudos: 476





	A Dozen Small Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [desert-lurker (wolfygoeswild)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfygoeswild/gifts).



Everything is too much. Too bright, too cold, too hot, all at once, everything pressing in around into him and it is  _ too much _ to the point of painful.

He’s crying. He can feel burning heat on his face and taste the salt in his throat. His gut hitches in jerky motions, pushing noisy, pathetic gasps out of his mouth as he sobs, tears hitting the dirt where he lies. 

It  _ hurts _ , in a way that is unfamiliar to him, the harsh grit of reality with his divine protection stripped away. He feels hollow and stiff, familiar and comfortable rejection warped into something different, something excruciating, by this new extreme.

Mostly, though, he just feels  _ too much _ , a dozen competing and conflicting sensations leaving him an overwhelmed wreck, the most powerless he’s ever been. 

He’s never been particularly powerful - influence over a dozen inconsequential domains, cobbled together from the remains of what the others did not want. But he’s never been power _ less _ , either.

So Martin - that’s what he’ll call himself, now that he’s had his Name taken - does not know what to do when a man comes up to him and begins to speak.

“Hi,” He says. His smile is wide, his voice thick with false enthusiasm. The hand he offers down to Martin’s shaking form is broad, square, and completely uncalloused. “I’m Peter Lukas.  _ Pleasure _ to meet you.”

Peter Lukas is a liar, but in this, he does not lie.

*****

The apartment Peter brings him to is bland. It’s all sharp edges and overbright lights, white and grey and untouchable. For a moment he thinks the potted plant on the coffee table might be the only living thing that regularly spends time in the apartment, until he realizes it’s plastic. The high ceilings make the rooms feel bigger than they are, but even then, there’s a slight feeling of claustrophobia, like it’s too small for two people to exist in the space. 

It’s liminal, too, with just a faint cobweb of spellwork settled over the walls to stifle the sound and movement in the surrounding city more than the soundproofing and fogged windows already do.

“I’d offer you tea, but I’ve only got one mug,” Peter says, making himself a cup. “I hope you don’t mind.”

It is against Martin’s nature to respond anything but, “Of course not, I’m not fond of tea anyway.”

At that response, Peter’s smile reaches his eyes, just for a moment.

They sit in silence for a long while. It’s not a companionable one—although Lukas sits not four feet away from where he’s leaning against the counter, he feels perfectly and completely alone.

Lukas breaks the silence, finally, voice smug and heavy with the conviction that he’ll get exactly what he wants.

“I have a favor to ask of you.”   
  
“Yes?”

He reaches out and places a hand on Martin’s shoulder, firm pressure that brings a strange, numbing sensation. His head swims, and it feels like he’s been pushed to the side in his own mind. Absently, he realizes he can smell seawater.

“Give me your name.” Peter commands, voice as pleasant and bland as his smile.

His mouth moves without any conscious decision to respond. It’s stupid. He knows it’s stupid, you don’t just- give people your Name (not that he has his proper one, anymore). But he looks Peter in the eye and says, “Martin.”

“ _ Perfect. _ Now, Martin, tie your power to me.” 

He feels something start to spool out of him, big skeins of energy, more than he can probably afford. It frightens him enough to startle him out of whatever trance Peter put him into; he starts back, breaking away from Peter’s touch and dissipating the fog. Martin pulls the threads of his power back into himself until it’s all contained and his alone again.

“No! No, that was supposed to work!” Peter leans forwards to try and grab Martin again, and when he fails, sends a wave of cold, stinging magic down the threads still linking them. “I was supposed to get your power!”

“I dont- I don’t want to be anyone’s patron.” Martin says, stepping back towards the exit. “I don’t want to share my power like that. Stay with your god - leave me alone.”

Peter lets out an angry, animalistic sound, and a surge of power hits Martin as he manages to step out of the door. The door slams shut with a violent crash, but as soon as it closes Martin can’t seem to find it. 

There’s nothing for him here, so he turns, leaving the plain white wall behind him. There’s nothing for him outside, either, but at least it’s bound to be more interesting.   
  


*****

The city doesn't see him. Nobody runs into him like there’s nothing there, or anything, and when he talks to people they respond, but their eyes seem to slide off him when he walks by, and they seem to need to leave after any questions answered. It’s not like Martin’s unused to nobody paying attention to him, but there’s a difference in between easy to ignore and having your presence smothered by the One Alone. 

It’s exhausting, trying to get someone to pay enough attention to you to complete a transaction or ask directions. But the lack of notice extends to security, and Martin is able to slip past people’s notice and spend his nights in a public library. It’s not like he has anything to do, either, so he spends most of his days there as well, reading poetry and quietly leaving granola bars (he finds that self-checkouts are a gift and circumvent the issues he ran into trying to purchase from a cashier) by the children who walk in with school bags and stay for hours, lost in fiction until the library closes or it’s time for the last bus on their line.

(Many of them are under his domain, and therefore under his protection. Even now that he’s been cast down, he cares far too much to do nothing. He hasn’t got much power, but even the granola bars help. It’s all he can do. It’s enough.)

One of them, a young girl with sunflowers growing in her eye sockets and thorns growing out of her skin, even ends up staying at the library overnight once. Martin puts his jacket over her shoulders when she falls asleep in a cozy back corner, and somehow the librarians miss her on closing. She wakes up the next morning and leaves for school, not questioning the granola bars she’s found in her bag. Martin’s jacket, left in a crumpled pile behind her, gains a thin layer of soil in a quiet reminder of someone he cannot truly help, the way he is now.

(He’s been stripped of his titles, but his mother’s punishment doesn’t steal his responsibilities away, only the tools he used to have to fulfill them)

It gets cold, still, at night. Martin tries not to worry about that too much, just wraps himself tight in his jacket and pretends he can’t smell the damp earth ground into its fibers. It doesn’t help.

  
  


*****

  
  


The cafe is fairly empty, this late in the morning. There’s still a few people milling around or working inside, but by and large the morning rush is over. That makes things easier for Martin, eliminating the problem of distractions and defending his spot in line.

Still, the barista at the counter shakes her head like she’s trying to clear thick clouds of cotton from around her more than once during the transaction. When the drink is made, she calls out “Medium mocha for- er, medium mocha!”

The drink is warm in his hands, though, the heat of it through cardboard cup pressing deep into his palms and chasing the chill out of his bones.

There’s not many seating options, even with the cafe fairly quiet. And Martin would prefer to stay inside, where it’s warm and smells like coffee and pastries. 

One of the seats is at a table of a few people, and if the way they keep glancing to the door is any indicator, they’re waiting for a fourth person. The only other free spot is across from a man with a laptop, scowling and absorbed in his work.

So Martin sits down across from the scowling, dark haired man with a relieved sigh. The man glances up, dismisses him just as quickly, and returns back to work, fingers jabbing keys far harder than seems necessary. 

Something about him draws Martin in.

Maybe it’s his aspect- he’s a fairly strong magic user, absolutely reeks of memories and ozone. But under the obvious arcane strength and his professional, put together dress, he’s definitely one of Martin’s. Even as weak as he is now, it wouldn’t be hard to reach out with a gentle thread of power and learn more. 

He’s not going to do that, though, because that would be really fucking creepy to do to anyone who’s not actually calling for his intervention, so Martin settles for observing him.

He sits there, sipping his drink and looking at the man, letting his eyes drift over the curve of his jaw and the sharp angles of his nose, the round scars that pockmark his skin, the way his hair and the edge of his jacket seem to fade out slightly at the edges, a bit like a mirage. His bright, analytical eyes. The ones that look up and glare at Martin.

Martin nearly falls out of his chair. 

“Hasn’t anybody ever told you staring is rude?”

“I- sorry, yeah, but- you can see me?” 

“Of course I see you, don’t be-” The man cuts himself off and his scowl deepens. “You’re not a ghost, are you?”

“What? No, I’m not a ghost. I got a little bit cursed, though, I think?” Martin wrings his hands. “You’re the first person I’ve really talked to in about a week and a half, now.”

“Right, well… don’t stare, please.” He turns back to his laptop, ready to continue whatever it was he was doing. 

But it’s the first time Martin’s gotten to talk with someone in a  _ week and a half _ , and frankly he’s a little hungry for interaction. So before he can think better of it, he blurts out, “I’m Martin. My name is Martin.”

The man looks up, startled. It’s not every day that someone gives strangers their name, their proper Name - it’s far too much power and responsibility for normal interactions - but Martin is desperate to keep talking. And he’s not about to introduce himself with an epithet.

Apparently social convention outweighs awkwardness, though, and he replies, very carefully choosing his words, “You can call me Jon.”

“Sorry, I just- I don’t know how to fix this and I’m in a really bad situation and it’s- it’s great to finally talk to someone.”

“That’s fine.” Jon’s response is slow and cautious. He is  _ definitely _ lying through his teeth for the sake of politeness, and shifts infinitesimally deeper into Martin’s domain. “Er, do you need help?”

“I, I should let you get back to your work, but, um. If you can point me in the direction of someone who might be able to help me, that would be great?”

Jon mutters to himself for a little bit, hunching over in his chair, before he straightens up and says, stiff as it is, “That’s fine. I work at the Magnus institute, we’ll find someone who knows what you’re up against there.”

*****

The archives are nearly as cold as outside, and Jon leads them quickly through the actual archive to the offices and research labs on the far side. He opens a dark oaken door and ushers Martin into a small, poorly lit office. After dumping his bag on the desk, Jon mutters something and taps a sigil carved into the wood, then himself and Martin. A slow-spreading patch of warmth grows from his forearm as soon as Jon’s fingers brush against his skin, slipping through the layers of fabric without any effort at all. 

“Sorry about that, the environmental controls leave it freezing in here. Gertrude insists on mechanical as well as magical preservation, but I can’t say the benefits outweigh the cost.” Jon explains, waving Martin back out into the archives proper. 

They wind through huge stacks of files, a labyrinth of boxes neatly labeled in a dozen different handwritings. Martin can taste the clinical, chemical flavor of stasis spells on the air itself, feels the moisture-reducing charms leave his hands and face dry. Jon walks through the confusing, towering rows with a confidence he’d lacked out on the street, calmly making his way through a mess of books that Martin couldn’t navigate with a map and all his power returned to him.

Eventually, after the stacks change from uniform to a varied collection of boxes clearly custom made to contain either particularly fragile or particularly powerful items, they come to a corner, quiet and isolated, where the air is even thicker with preservation charms. 

Someone looks up from behind a desk absolutely  _ covered _ in books and loose pieces of scrap paper scribbled on with sigils and runes and casting circles and eyes. They’ve got hair dyed a patchy black and eye tattoos on their throat and where their jaw articulates, and a strange presence, like your own eyes don’t want to move away from them. 

“Jon. Who’s this?” 

“This is Martin. He’s been cursed. Martin, this is Gerry, the Institute’s seer.”

“Nice to meet you.” Gerry waves, displaying more eye tattoos sitting on each knuckle of a hand faintly scarred in strange, swirling patterns, save for within a small radius around each small eye. Martin waves back and greets him on reflex, letting out some hollow pleasantries (although it really  _ is  _ nice to meet Gerry, or anyone else who might be able to break this curse).

“What’s cursed you, and how?” Gerry asks him, as soon as greetings are over with. There’s a sharp, curious look in their eyes, a hunger Martin is more than willing to satisfy.

“A man named Peter Lukas tried to bind my power, and, well, when I wouldn’t let him, he cursed me, I think? Nobody seems to notice me, or to be able to talk to me for more than a few minutes. Except you and Jon, apparently?” Martin wrings his hands, anxious. “I don’t- I don’t know if it’s actually a curse or a side effect of something… else? That happened just before I met Lukas, so I guess it could be that, but I don’t think it’d- it’d do  _ that. _ ”

Gerry tilts their head, looking at Martin. “Peter Lukas. He’s a fairly prominent warlock of the One Alone, although given that he’s fairly prominent he’s not incredibly powerful. And if it’s a curse or a spell or jinx or something, it’d make sense that I can see you. I’m a seer, and also dead, with enough spells tied to me right now that most magic that isn’t designed specifically to circumvent the protections I have just… won’t work with me. I have no idea why Jon can see you, but maybe it has to do with his ghosty deal. You’re fully corporeal, right? It’s just a notice-me-not?”

“I’m sorry, dead?” 

“Yes. Corporeal or not?”

“Er, corporeal.” 

“Right.” Gerry reaches out to Martin. “Can I touch you? I’m not strong enough to See anything useful without contact, anymore. Just a hand will do.”

Martin gives them a hand, and their own feels normal, solid and warm and  _ there _ as it wraps around his. Gerry’s face scrunches in consideration, and grasping roots of Sight push through Martin’s being to pull at the magic woven around and into him. It’s barely two seconds before they pull back, gently untangling their Sight from Martin and curling it back into themselves. 

With a steady voice, Gerry says, “Yeah, it’s just a notice-me-not from the One Alone. I’d say that spending time around someone who can see you or you have some sort of mutual emotional connection with is the best way to fix it, but if that doesn’t work after, say, a few days, you can ask Gertrude or maybe Sasha about a counter-spell. Or, Jon can ask, I suppose. You’ll be spending enough time with him.”

They look past Martin at Jon. “Speaking of, Sasha wanted you to summon and talk to someone from the 15th century about the specific measures of different plants in one of the salves she’s researching for her shelf-stable burn cream project.” 

Jon makes a noise of acknowledgement and turns on his heel, heading back towards his office. As soon as he’s out of hearing range, Gerry leans forwards and murmurs, “You’re a god?”

Martin can feel his face blanch and cold spread out from behind his sternum. “Just- just a small one. I’m not important, I can’t help you with anything, I don’t even- I don’t even have access to most of my power right now.”

“Yeah, I got that. Who got you cast down? Someone close to you?” Gerry’s voice is passive and calm, despite their evident curiosity. The lack of care about Martin’s potential influence and power, shockingly, not a falsehood in the slightest.

“Um. Yeah. It was-” Martin stalls for a moment before he manages to choke out, betrayal bitter and gritty in his throat. “It was my mother. She got me like this.”

Gerry considers him for a long moment. 

“Mine too.” They say. They reach out their hand again and gently place it on Martin’s shoulder, but this time there’s no magic pushing it’s way into him, just mundane and simple physical comfort. The silence hangs heavy and gentle around them for a second before Jon comes walking back, carrying his things, and Gerry pulls their hand away. 

“Would you like to meet Sasha, Martin? I need to go help her with something, and, well…”

“Er, yeah, we should probably- probably stick together.” Martin lets out a painfully awkward laugh. “For spell breaking purposes, yknow.”

Jon nods. “Right, of course.”

  
  


*******

Sasha is lovely. She’s clever and clearly interested in what she’s researching and Martin suspects she would have ignored him in favor of talking to Jon about translation errors and the differences between teas and tinctures even if he’d been his normal self.

Her request is Jon isnt a small one- she wants him to call up a ghost from around 1480, with no physical parts and nothing significant save a very old book and a name. 

Jon nods. He looks bored, even, and Martin wonders at the kind of person to have enough skill to think of calling someone up who died over 500 years ago as an everyday job. 

He takes the book, an old thing that looks like it’d crumble into a pile of dust if not for the extensive layers of preservation spells around it, and gently opens it, flipping through until he finds what he needs.

The summoning itself doesn’t look like much. Jon takes in a deep breath and closes his eyes, brow furrowing and mouth setting tight as he focuses on whatever he’s muttering. With a slow, anticlimactic rise in  _ something _ , some energy Martin can’t quite identify, the long-dead herbalist comes to them. 

Sasha can’t see or sense her, still in the spiritual world as she is, but Jon clearly does, and although Martin can’t quite make out anything but a presence, he’s not quite of the mortal world himself. 

The conversation itself is quick and pleasant, with Jon acting as a translator between two parties who can’t quite perceive each other. The ghost of the herbalist is very flattered someone is using her work so far in the future, while Sasha seems thrilled to be getting somewhere with some new information. After maybe twenty minutes of back and forth, Sasha has a dense page of notes and Jon gently dismisses the ghost. He’s beautiful in action, confident and powerful as he manipulates the connections between worlds to communicate with someone long gone. 

It is strange, though, how easily he calls to spirits. Martin can sense the way he pulls them to him and stitches together the little bits of memory that tend to fray and fade into a whole person, instead of a cheap imitation, but Jon doesn't even seem to notice the complex magic. 

They say their goodbyes to Sasha, and Jon leads Martin back to his office. They sit there in peace for several hours, Jon muttering over some old papers and marking up a massive sheet until it’s a web of connections linking different first hand accounts of the same events, a network he can use to divine the truth out of bias and confusion. He gives Martin some only slightly confusing instructions to a small break room, and takes his tea with a distracted thanks before he lets most of it go cold when he forgets it exists. 

He still looks up at Martin on occasion to give him a quick, tight smile, or to ask if he’s alright. Martin hasn't ranked higher on someone’s list of priorities than their tea for a very, very long time, even before the curse.

It’s a nice change of pace.

By the time they leave, it’s dark out, with the trees planted along the sidewalk all lit up, a warm golden light that illuminates the street, dripping off their branches in little droplets that disperse into a fine mist before the hit the ground. It’s beautiful, and a bit of fondness for the world and the wonder people achieve in their fleeting, insignificant lives makes the fog caught up in Martin’s lungs fade just a little.

But the cool autumn evening leaves Martin shivering in his thin, earth-stained jacket. With a wry look, Jon gives him his scarf, and as soon as it closes a loop around his neck a wave of rich warmth floods the chill from his bones. 

“Thank you,” Martin says, the truth of the gratitude heavy on his deceitful tongue. 

“Can’t be too careful, with Gertrude as archivist. I try to stay prepared for the most arctic of environments.”

“I think you just get cold easily.” Martin jokes back, and a smile goes up on his face that mirrors Jon’s, small and amused. 

“Maybe.” He says. His tone warms Martin just as much as the scarf.

*****

They fall into a routine quickly. Martin picks up domestic chores out of a sense of obligation and Jon does things elbowing himself around Martin’s bulk to dry the dishes while he washes them. They go to the Institute and Jon works while Martin finds some way to amuse himself by talking to someone. Then they get lunch at one of the shops on the street, and head back to the institute again, where Jon dives back into work and Martin continues to find little ways to keep himself from losing his mind from boredom.

At first, Martin was limited to talking with Gerry and Jonah, when the two technically-dead employees were around, although Jonah feels… bad, and Martin generally avoids him when he can. Then Tim, the selkie specialist on curse loopholes figured out a way to get past a condition of the curse, although they can’t figure out which one, and Jonah’s vessel Elias got used to seeing him though Jonah enough the curse doesn’t work once Martin’s gotten his attention. That’s harder said than done, given how often the man is some degree of high, and distractible even sober. He does like Martin enough to share his hoarded snacks, though, which is telling when Eli is a quarter draconic. 

Sasha’s too busy to pay attention to him, and not interested or curious enough to experiment on curse breaking , but she does let him into her lab, and lets him sit quietly while she makes dozens and dozens of sharp smelling herbal concoctions. She even talks him through the different processes and what they do, although she does seem confused about why she’s speaking out loud several times while explaining. It’s a small act of kindness that keeps her talking, though, and Martin savors it.

Even Basira, the policewoman who comes to ask Jon with help interviewing a deceased victim, is kind to him. She gives him a tight, tired smile from behind broad sunglasses, and then a more appreciative one when he brings her a cup of tea, snakes under her hijab moving ever so slightly closer to him. She brings Jon with him when she leaves, though, and he comes back looking shaken and pale, so he can’t bring himself to like her quite as much as he would otherwise.

The fog in his lungs fades with every day. He’ll be free from that curse soon, at least, but Martin knows he’ll still be held back from his power after this particular bind breaks.

When he’s with Jon, watching him chew his pens or dance to a cheesy pop song when he cooks dinner or make faces when he reads an account from a particularly nasty person, he thinks it might be worth it. 

*****

Peter Lukas’ curse barely extends to strangers by the time Martin finally asks Jon what happened to him.

It’s been a weird, hectic day, with over a dozen posthumous interviews taking place because of a scheduling error. 

The institute had another medium called in, a woman named Melanie who used intricate rituals and got into a magnificent screaming row with Jon the one time they had to work in the same room together after getting one interview done in the time he’d finished three. When she introduced herself to Martin, though, she’d called herself one of the finest mediums in England without a hint of irony or lie to her words.

Once they get home with some cheap thai takeaway and collapse onto the couch, Martin can only restrain himself for a few minutes.

“When we first met, Gerry said that you’re part ghost. What did they mean? Is that why you’re such a good medium?”

“Yes, that’s one way of putting it.” Jon says, slumping further into Martin’s side. “First, I’m not  _ technically  _ a medium, since I don’t experience any level of possession or communication using me as a vessel. I just see spirits, and translate back and forth between the living and the dead. And that’s because i am, somewhat, part ghost.”

Martin’s brow furrows, and he considers the wallpaper because he thinks looking at Jon right now would make him startle. “Does that mean you’ve died?”

Jon’s laugh breaks the serious feeling in the room for a moment. “Don't be ridiculous, Martin, I’m not  _ dead. _ I'm made up of flesh and blood, just a little less… corporeal than average.”

He sobers up quickly, though, and takes a deep breath before he begins to explain.

“My parents both died when I was young. I- at one point, in my early twenties, I decided I wanted to talk to them again. Most spells for that are pretty safe and straightforwards, but they still need biological material from the person you’re trying to summon. And, well- my grandmother had their remains disposed of. To protect them, ostensibly, from summoners or people trying to steal their magic.” Jon laughs, hollow and dry. “But there I was, one huge source of organic material from  _ both _ my parents, in a sense. And I was a powerful magic user in my own right, and it’d been done before with organic material from living descendants. So I gave it a try.”

He reaches out his hands, palm up. They’re slightly translucent, and dust motes pass through them like they’re nothing at all, a fragile network of memories instead of blood and bone. “But like any university student, I forgot theory and practice can be different, and when I actually did the spell it all went wrong. Maybe if I’d given my blood and had someone else do the ritual, it would have worked, but I just did it all myself, and I guess that the combination of my magic and my matter in that spell meant it backfired. Instead of pulling ghosts towards me, I pulled myself towards them.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Dont- don’t apologize. I deserved it, I was stupid.”

“You just wanted to see your family again, Jon.” Martin turns and reaches around Jon slowly, and when he leans in, pulls him into the most comforting and reassuring hug he can muster. “That’s not a crime. You just wanted someone who would care for you.”

Jon’s hands wind into his sweater, pulling the wool tight. “Thank you.” He says. “Thank you.”

*****

Martin lets go of what he’s lost, with his Name. He’s happy with Jon, and their insignificant life together.

It starts small, week by week. Elias blackmails Jonah into giving Martin a temporary position. He meets Georgie, who ruffles Jon’s hair with a fond smile and tells him she’s glad he’s finally found a boyfriend, then laughs until she bleats when Jon turns bright red. Jon eventually  _ does _ ask him out, and nothing much changes except now he’s allowed to lean down and gently kiss his cheeks when the impulse strikes, and his forehead and his hands and his nose and his lips, until they’re both giggling and dizzy with it. 

He still does every little thing he can find to uphold his duty, but he’s  _ happy _ , playing this role as a mortal. 

Not so much of a punishment, after all.

  
  


*****

  
  


Of course, of course, something has to ruin his peace. 

It’s not uncommon, the others tell him, for people to try to storm the institute. It is a repository of ancient and powerful magic, along with its role collecting historical accounts.

It is far more uncommon for anyone to get into the archives themselves.

Neither he nor Jon is expecting someone when they come in early. Jon’s eyes are still a little bleary from sleep, even, and he’s clutching his travel mug like a lifeline. 

When the step through the doors, it’s still and silent. Too silent, actually, without any subtle hum of protection and identity-confirming spells underneath the air conditioning. Martin stops Jon with a gentle hand on his shoulder, and shakes his head. Jon stares, before sketching a quick spell-seeing sigil into the air. He inhales sharp and quick and scared when he sees the shredded remains of the wards.

They make their way down into the archives carefully, quietly. Without the preservation spells active, it smells like dust and ancient paper. 

From deep in the archives comes a sickly yellow glow, and the sound of chanting. Martin’s heard this, seen this,  _ smelled  _ this before.

He charges off, trusting instinct to pull him towards the summoning circle. He’s vaguely aware of Jon running after him, but that’s not important. 

He drags up all the power he can muster out of this fragile cpshell he’s been sentenced to, and calls out,  **_“Stop!”_ **

The summoner smiles at him, gums black and bleeding, and with a slash of a rusty, ragged blade, spills blood into the circle just as a rush of wind and dead leaves begins to scrub out the centre of the chalk drawing.

Martin disappears from the mortal world, and in his place, a god blinks into existence on\ the opposite of a paper-thin and translucent film separating it from the divine realm.

He can see the other god approaching, a squirming, filthy thing, a mass of worms and rot and disease. He snarls, as fierce as a god of decidedly un-fierce things can be.

She pauses for a moment, and considers him. She smiles through torn and decaying lips, and laughs, an awful, skittering sound that crawls down his throat and tries to choke him.

“Jane,” he says, “Don’t.”

Her head goes sideways, twisting on a worm eaten neck until her head is nearly upside down. Her smile grows, and she reaches slowly for the place that will let her through into the mortal world. 

He barks out her Name, her real one, a terrible chittering collection of noises that tastes like old blood and sour milk on the back of his tongue, and she recoils. She considers him, and he knows she's more powerful, that she has him at her mercy, but he stands there, determined to protect the archives and his people, although he can’t remember why it’s so important. 

She turns around, and lets herself return to those dying in-between places gods of rot like to occupy so much.

“Impressive.” A smooth voice calls from behind him. The god flinches and turns around to see Oliver Banks, stood not two feet behind a small, ferocious man. 

The End of All Things considers the god, and then the mortal man channeling more power than could possibly be healthy, eyes glowing and light dripping from his bared teeth and fists. When he acts, it’s not even a  _ spell _ the man flings at the summoner, but a thick bind of pure magic that wraps around their upper torso, restraining their arms and wings. 

“He’s powerful.” Oliver says.

“Yes,” replies the god. “He is.”

“Not strong enough, though.”

The man  _ is  _ starting to fray at the edges, burning his already hardly-there physical form into nothing. The summoner restrained, he’s looking around desperately, shouting for someone as magic pours like blood from his mouth and imbues his words with power. The god makes a quiet, broken sound in his throat without understanding why.

“He’s one of yours. You love him.” It’s not a question, but the god doesn’t know why it's true. He can’t remember much of anything with clarity beyond when his mother stripped him of his Name. “Do you want to save him?”

“Yes.”

Oliver considers the god carefully. “He’s bleeding too much power, he won’t live past the day alone. But I can tie him to you entirely, if the conditions are right.”

The god’s mind feels like spun sugar, fragile and thin and ready to break at the slightest pressure, but he knows he wants to save the frantic, dying man. He wants it more than he wants his Name or his power or even his memory.

“How do I do it?”

Oliver Banks, the End of All Things, looks him in the eye. “You need to know him, and he needs to know you. He needs to have your trust and your Name, and then it might work.”

“I don't—“ The god swallows. “I don’t remember him. And, they, they took my Name.”

“Then I hope you’re very, very lucky.”

And the most powerful force he knows waves a hand and casts him from the divine realm into the mortal one once more.

The god suddenly hears and sees and smells and feels and tastes everything clearly once the layer of separation is removed again.

He turns to face the man, and remembers him, of  _ course  _ he remembers him, it’s  _ Jon _ , beautiful kind Jon standing there, hemorrhaging magic as he stares right back. The god steps forwards and the glow begins to fade, leaving a shaking and scared and crying man behind.

He looks into his eyes, and sees every part of him that could be considered part of his domain. There’s surprisingly few gaps remaining, and those are filled with the gods own memories of stories and confessions and conversations over tea. 

Oliver was right. The god may not know himself, but he knows Jon, and he knows what to do.

**“** **_Jonathan Sims,”_ ** He says-booms-thinks, **“** **_I am the god of many things. I am the god of small gifts, cups of tea and kind notes and moments stolen to spend time with loved ones. I am in little selfless acts, taking insects outside and lending jackets and giving up your seat on the train. I am of warm autumn days, the changing colors and golden sun, the scent of decay and the cool wind. I am the voice behind every small lie, I-am-fine and it-is-alright and the thousands of things people say to each other to placate and soothe and agree. I am the god of quiet deception, the incorrect assumptions left unchecked and the overlooked falsehoods. I am the god of unloved children, all those forgotten or forsaken by their parents and guardians. I lay this out before you so you may see me as I have seen you, Jonathan Sims, and I give myself over freely for your scrutiny_ ** **.”**

The man, small and weak and mortal, does not flinch. He steps closer, and reaches up, stretches on his tiptoes to place a gentle hand on the god’s cheek. He does not say anything, and simply looks at the god with soft, piercing eyes.

**_“You are mine, Jonathan Sims. I do not say this to manipulate you, but as truth. You fall under my domain a hundred times over, and I have power over you.”_ **

The man’s voice is fragile and so, so gentle when he speaks, each syllable falling soft from his lips. “Are you alright?”

**_“Tell me what you see.”_ **

The god is far stronger than him, right now, with Jon’s magic still pooled on the floor around them. The tender swipe of a thumb over his cheek is still a soothing, protective gesture, and the man’s next words sound like a prayer and an oath and a blessing rolled into one. “I see  _ you _ , Martin.”

This time, when they blink out of that particular reality, they stay together. 

It hurts, for both of them, the screaming pain of getting a divine name more than even the agony of having it torn away. By the time they slip sideways back into the mortal realm, they’re both sweaty, shaking messes.

“I’m, you’re,” Jon gasps and grins, clutching Martin close. “I can feel you, you’re  _ beautiful.” _

“That’s you, too, Jon, we’re together in this. Not quite like a marriage, but- it’s the only way I could save you.”

He just laughs, amazed and a little frantic, and kisses Martin, pulling him close and smiling against his lips. “Thank you,” he says, and they stand there together until they realize that they have an awful mess to clean up before anyone else arrives.

Jon goes to the puddles of magic he’d left everywhere, and a cool rush goes through both of them as they take in the power. They’re not one being, but now there’s a hundred tiny pathways and connections between them, one giant reservoir of magic and what used to be Martin’s aspects balanced between both of them. But once the hemorrhaged magic is gone and the bound summoner finally stops yelling about becoming the god of cockroaches, there’s nothing more for them to do.

The police come, then Elias (and, by extension, Jonah, who takes over the body very quickly when Elias sees all the paperwork set out and goes pale) and Tim. It’s hours of questioning and waiting and many, many harmless lies about what happened to them before they can leave.

Then, they walk home hand in hand to their small and comfortable flat in the late afternoon sunlight, and if the leaves under their feet crunch louder and the colors are a little brighter, two gods of small things are the only ones who notice.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This is for a Christmas exchange. It is very late and very unedited on account of I have negative time management skills. I love u hannah jay sorry this is late úwù
> 
> As usual you can find me @lamellas on tumblr!


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